Amazon Intervention

 Update:  well, I wrote this last week, and didn't get a chance to post it...but here it is.

Dylan’s birthday is this week.  He is obsessed with special occasions like this one since he sees them as opportunities to get presents.  He actually starts working on his list for next birthday on his birthday.  And, I don’t really get him everything he wants.  BUT, I usually get him the thing(s) he wants the most.  How does he make me get him what he wants the most, you may ask?  Well, he uses a very effective persuasive technique:  he wears me OUT!

He nags and begs and reasons and psychoanalysis me until I have no will power left and I give in.  Marketing research has actually found out that the lack of will power makes people susceptible to impulse shopping.  I heard the other day that the most effective time to display advertising in Social Media is midnight and the hours afterwards.  Why?  Because will power decreases as we get more and more tired.  For example, take the typical college student.  This person spends all day doing who-knows-what (NOT their homework, I can assure you) and don’t really get to bed until exhaustion beats them…at around midnight-one a.m.  At that time, what do they do?  Do they go lightly into a restful sleep?  Of course not!  They grab their phone and mindlessly scroll through their social media accounts until the hypnotizing forces of blurred pictures and memes make their minds shut down…not before tempting them to press the “add to shopping cart” button on that hard-to-resist/impossible-to-live-without puke colored fanny pack, which just magically popped up in Instagram, on a flash sale for only the next 30 minutes, before it disappears forever.  How did they know I needed that!? Wow!  I’m so lucky I stayed up tonight!

I go through my days feeling so tired that whatever little will power I have, vanishes as the tempting lure of that, which I must leave alone, but I can’t, flashes before my eyes.  I’m so tired and in such need for a respite, that, whatever promises me an instant of joyful escape, seems to call my name (usually something on Amazon).  And I answer that call right away.  Of course, the feeling is fleeting, and I’m left with a guilty conscious (I need some Amazon intervention, quick!). 

Sigh…

I keep forgetting that there is only one place where my drained will power, and my exhausted limbs can go to find rest and to replenish:  The Presence of Jesus. 

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11: 28 

And, guess what?  It’s not like I’m going to be bumming around, doing nothing.  No, I will still be productive.  I will still have to carry a yoke; but it is easy and light…because it’s His yoke, and He is the One who really carries it…we’re just hanging with Him.

Sigh…

OK, I did buy that pair of crazy, flashy, expensive basketball shoes for Dylan’s birthday after I made myself tired with my own lecture on why it is not a good for the soul to believe that material things can make us better.  I know…no comments.  But, I’m learning…slowly…but surely, that the antidote for my lack of will power is not to work harder at trying to be better at it.  It is surrendering my weakness to the One Who Strengthens me.  I can’t have more will power on command.  I shouldn’t make decisions when I’m tired.  I need to seek His Presence and exchange my heavy burdens with Him, so I end up carrying a lighter weight and He ends up directing my path.